


Crossing The Line

by equestrianstatue, Laura Shapiro (laurashapiro)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Aziraphale has a vulva, Body Swap, Bus from Tadfield, Crowley has a vulva, First Kiss, First Time, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other, Porn with Feelings, The Ritz, Vaginal Fingering, Wall Sex, aziraphale has a penis, briefly, even more hot wall press action, feats of strength, hot wall press action, seriously blink and you'll miss it, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house but they might show you a really fun time, wall press
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurashapiro/pseuds/Laura%20Shapiro
Summary: His hands clenched in the angel’s lapels, and that was some kind of miracle in itself, because he could feel The Line trying to prevent it, the holiness of the angel working to repel his advance even as Aziraphale regarded him with mild surprise and walked gently backward into the wall. Now there was this -- thisthingcrackling between them, trying to push him away like his magnetic opposite, and Crowley was not just hissing but spitting as his mouth watered, his neck flushed, his skin tingled all over.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 184
Kudos: 732
Collections: AJ’s personal faves, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Our Own Side, kashiichan's favourites





	Crossing The Line

**Author's Note:**

> When we started working on this story, no one had ever heard the phrase “social distancing”.

“You know, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, with a particularly sanctimonious twinkle in his eye, “I’ve always said that deep down, you really are quite a nice -- ”

Crowley moved without thinking, a split-second strike. Some part of him still knew what to do with prey, or at least how to borrow the instinct in an emergency. He surged forward, mouth tight, teeth bared, Aziraphale’s coat bunching in his fists.

“Shut it. I’m a demon. I’m not nice!”

And then Crowley didn’t know what he was saying, because he’d crossed The Line and his whole body was lit up like Las Vegas. His hands clenched in the angel’s lapels, and that was some kind of miracle in itself, because he could feel The Line trying to prevent it, the holiness of the angel working to repel his advance even as Aziraphale regarded him with mild surprise and walked gently backward into the wall. Now there was this -- this _thing_ crackling between them, trying to push him away like his magnetic opposite, and Crowley was not just hissing but spitting as his mouth watered, his neck flushed, his skin tingled all over.

This wasn’t meant to happen. He’d touched Aziraphale before. Not a lot. Not anything like as much as he wanted to. But enough to know that The Line was easily permeable when approached diplomatically, generating a gentle frisson as their essences rubbed up against one another. A handshake, a clap on the shoulder, the brush of fingers -- all of these permitted within the bubbles of space all angels and all demons carried with them.

It was a practical matter. Had to pass among humans without them noticing, slide in and out of the crowd. The Line kept human beings at bay, kept them from touching you when you didn’t want them to, could even keep them from seeing you when you didn’t want them to. Everyone had one, angels and demons, as unique as a fingerprint. Crowley knew the feel of Aziraphale’s holy space like he knew the shifting sea of his eyes, the play of his thumb and forefinger on his signet ring. And it had never felt like this.

But then, Crowley hadn’t pushed his way into Aziraphale’s space like this before, either. They had a careful, measured dance, the two of them, and they both knew its steps. It had grown in complexity, over the last millennium or so, but it had begun as non-interference. The ability to sidestep discreetly out of each other’s way, literally as well as figuratively. And so The Line between them, which ought to have maintained a rigid barrier defending them from each other, had learnt instead to bend and swerve and twist just enough to be accommodating. Both of them, Crowley thought, had always found the idea of actual physical conflict rather gauche, especially when any persistent disagreements could be thrashed out far more thoroughly and pleasantly over dinner. And so The Line hadn’t really had much work to do, where the two of them were involved.

But this -- well, this wasn’t really a conflict, of course. For one thing, Aziraphale wasn’t fighting back, whatever The Line seemed to think he ought to be doing. And for another, Crowley hadn't really meant it to be a threat. But it wouldn’t do, having literally just lost the Antichrist, for the angel to start calling him _nice_. You never know who was listening, or who was about to emerge from a sewer with a summons for your next performance review. No, as Aziraphale always liked to remind him, they were an angel and a demon. Let Crowley be the one doing the reminding, for once.

But perhaps Crowley was a little more stressed than he’d realised, and so suddenly here they were: Aziraphale’s face an inch away, looking surprised and curious and not at all scared, even as The Line was well and truly crossed, and the sacred space around him flared up in alarm at a demon forcing its bounds. Crowley could feel it, still, trying to push him away, almost like a forcefield -- although Aziraphale’s actual corporation was doing nothing of the sort. His breath, like Crowley’s, was coming short. Crowley wondered if he could feel the same thing. Must do. The intersection between their natures was shocked and shaking with energy, desperate for them either to engage in combat or to peel apart.

But Crowley stood his ground. He gritted his teeth and leaned in closer, making his skin prickle with harsh, holy heat. “I’m never nice,” he muttered, feeling the words dissolve into the fizzle of The Line between them, pushing against one another. Aziraphale was staring at his mouth. “Nice is a four-letter word, I will not have -- ”

“Excuse me, gentlemen.”

Crowley whipped his head around, the rest of his body frozen in place. A woman in a neat dark suit was clicking her way towards them. Brain sizzling, heart thumping, Crowley tried to pay attention. But his hands were still wrapped in Aziraphale’s coat.

“Sorry to break up an intimate moment,” said the woman. “Can I help you?”

 _Doubt it_ , Crowley thought. He could feel Aziraphale’s eyes on the side of his face.

Crowley only let go of Aziraphale once he’d recognised the nun, his mind snapping abruptly back to attention -- or it tried to, anyway. His hands flexed involuntarily, tingling with loss and relief combined, as he tried not to watch the careful, tight-throated way that Aziraphale was rearranging his clothes, putting himself back together. He tried to push past the sensations of his own overheated skin rapidly cooling, his breath slowing, the atoms of his corporation settling themselves back into their normal pattern after whatever disturbance they’d just undergone.

The end of the world was one thing, but what the fuck was _that_?

\--

In the days that followed, Crowley didn’t have time to wonder at what had in fact been an intensely erotic experience (how! They hadn’t even got their kit off! They were in public, for Hell’s sake! Never even so much as tried to undo that infuriating bow tie. How he fantasised about undoing that bow tie, slowly, as Aziraphale tilted his chin up just the tiniest bit to let him). Crowley was far too concerned about the End of Everything -- first the one that was happening to everybody and then the one that was happening to him personally. And then, when the endings unended, it happened again. Only this time, it was Aziraphale who crossed The Line.

It shouldn’t have happened. There was nothing aggressive in the gesture. But when Aziraphale seized his hand on the bus from Tadfield, it was so sudden, so unexpected, and Crowley’s mind was so utterly everywhere else, The Line sprang up like a sentry to protect the shattered remains of him. And Crowley let out a shuddering breath as his stomach flipped over and he tingled everywhere. Most especially between his legs.

Did Aziraphale feel it, that little blaze of heat as they touched? He breathed in as Crowley’s fingers curled around his palm, but that could have meant anything. And it was about as far from an attack as possible, taking someone’s hand. Aziraphale couldn’t have meant for it to happen, couldn’t have known that Crowley’s Line would go unexpectedly into combat mode when he did.

Crowley was exhausted. He was covered in soot and sweat and tears. His nose and lungs were full of burnt rubber and brimstone. This odd little spark of lust was the last thing he wanted right now, low on the list after a long scalding shower and an epic nap and a very large coffee. Maybe after taking stock of his losses, maybe after a minute to centre himself, maybe after a few minutes more to appreciate that they’d won back the world -- maybe then he could think about the fact that the angel was holding his hand and electricity was fizzing between them and his cunt was pulsing gently in his pants.

But they didn’t have a minute. They were almost certainly going to die.

Aziraphale squeezed his hand, ramping up the buzz between them even more, and then relaxed his grip, and it ramped back down a little. Crowley’s throat ached and part of his brain screamed _Aziraphale is alive and he is holding your hand you lucky lucky bastard_. Experimentally, Crowley squeezed back. The crackle and pop of The Line’s defence thingy, or whatever the fuck it was, reared up for a second and then seemed to recede a bit more when he did that. He squeezed again, and with a wayward sigh escaping his lips (inexcusable! He would never have allowed that if he weren’t so blasted tired), he stroked the back of the angel’s hand with his thumb. The sparkling aethereal vibration faded to a background hum, and Crowley’s arousal waned to something manageable. More or less like how he felt around the angel all the time. He took a deep breath and slithered lower on the seat, resting his head against the window.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “I know it’s been a terribly long day, and I’m sorry to bring it up, but. I have Agnes Nutter’s final prophecy in my pocket, and I believe it concerns us.”

“Oh, yeah? What does she have to say? Do we go down swinging, at least? Take a few of the bastards with us?”

Aziraphale looked almost as tired as Crowley felt, for someone whose body was only two hours old and full of cheap merlot. Still, his smile had a touch of mischief in it. “On the contrary, I think she’s given us a way to survive. If it means what I think it means.” He reached into his coat pocket with his free hand -- not dropping Crowley’s, very deliberately not dropping Crowley’s -- and pulled out a scrap of paper, burnt at the edges. Crowley took it from him and read it.

“Choose our faces wisely? Go undercover somehow? But they’d still be able to find us, sense us.” The occult and aethereal energy signature, unique as a fingerprint.

“No, I’m thinking of a more... extreme kind of disguise.” Aziraphale pressed Crowley’s hand again. “I’ve been thinking about -- possession.”

Crowley pushed his glasses down so he could give Aziraphale the full effect of his incredulity. “You _what?_ ”

“I was able to inhabit Madame Tracy’s body and, well, I’ve been thinking about it a bit, and on reflection I think I should be able to inhabit yours -- if you were inhabiting mine at the time.”

That background hum was asserting itself just a bit more, well, assertively now and Crowley swallowed as he tried to gather the fragments of himself into a reply that didn’t just spill his mangled emotions all over the angel’s lap. He settled for the remark he hadn’t managed with a couple of bottles of whisky sloshing around in him earlier today. “Are you saying you want my body, angel?” Because I would be up for that. Oh, stars, would I be up for that.

Aziraphale’s face flickered through the familiar pattern: the start of a flirtatious smile, something like hope dawning golden and gorgeous, and then his eyes flicked away as he pulled himself back into the angel he thought he was meant to be, and then he looked back at Crowley and said in mock outrage, “Oh, do be serious. I’m talking about saving our lives!”

The angel laid it all out for him on the way to London, the whole scheme he’d been cooking up, and Crowley had to admit it did make sense, in the maddest possible way. But what had the last eleven years been but mad? Today had been the bloody apotheosis. Tonight -- well, tonight was going to be a whole new world.

When they arrived at the flat, there were Ligur’s remains to be dealt with, and Aziraphale miracled the traces away with a gasp and an arm flung against Crowley’s chest: Guardian of the Eastern Gate and one lovesick demon. The angel had to sit down after that, after seeing what holy water could do, and then he wouldn’t wait for Crowley to take the shower he’d been fantasising about, he wouldn’t accept a drink, not a cup of tea, not even a glass of water.

“We have to start straight away! They could come at any moment!”

Crowley had never seen him this agitated. He sat down beside Aziraphale on the hastily-manifested sofa and slowly, carefully placed his hand on his shoulder. This time The Line bent aside for him, as it had done dozens of times before, as Aziraphale welcomed what little comfort he could give. Crowley could feel the tension in him, though -- he was practically vibrating with it.

“All right, all right, just let me --” If they were really going to do this, he was going to by Satan clean up a bit first. It wouldn’t do to have the angel inside him in this state, oh fuck he’d really just thought that. He clicked his fingers and miracled himself clean and freshly clothed.

Aziraphale really seemed to see him, then; a tiny bit of the worry dropped from his face and a nervous smile flashed there, just for an instant. “Yes. Thank you. You’re a -- you’re a very welcoming host.”

Crowley couldn’t help what his face did in response to that. “Try my best,” he mumbled, going for insouciance and coming out somewhere closer to embarrassment. “So how do we actually -- make it happen?” he asked. “Funnily enough, you’re the only one of us who’s possessed someone before.”

“Have you never?”

Crowley pulled a face, shook his head. “Nah. So unsubtle.” Aziraphale, despite everything, smiled again, less nervously. “Well, bit of a last resort, isn’t it? It’s practically admitting you’re not up to the job, temptation-wise. Oh, I couldn’t _actually_ convince that human to do anything immoral, but don’t worry, I just puppeted them like a bodysuit instead. Amateur hour, seriously.”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, looking oddly fond, “we’ll work it out together, then. Last time, you see, I was without a corporation to begin with, and so it was…” He made a curved, whooshing motion with one hand. “Like being drawn in by a gravitational pull, I suppose. But this time, I think we’ll have to give ourselves a bit of a push to _leave_ our own bodies first. Since we’re both rather at home in them.”

Crowley swallowed. He didn’t actually pay his own corporation an awful lot of attention, most of the time. They’d worked out an arrangement early on, him and his body; it did the things he needed it to do, he gave it most of the things it asked for, and outside of that, they didn’t really chat. He knew that Aziraphale assumed he was vain, and Crowley, on the basis that vanity was a sin, encouraged him to think so -- but actually, Crowley’s ever-evolving appearance was far less to do with aesthetics and far more to do with practicality. Different kinds of humans liked or trusted or were drawn to people who looked a certain way, and that was a useful little tool, for a demon. Aziraphale, who had essentially chosen a basic look six thousand years ago and stuck with it, couldn’t have been expected to understand.

But Aziraphale, like he had said, really did seem to be at _home_ in his body. It was constant and consistent, and moved like an extension of his soul: measured and careful and slow, most of the time, with occasional flashes of speed that always took Crowley by surprise. And what was more, Aziraphale _liked_ his body, clearly, and liked the human things it could do. He’d taken to food and drink like a duck to -- well -- whatever it was ducks took to, several centuries before Crowley had ever bothered to give any sort of matter ingestion a go. While fashion baffled Aziraphale, he did appreciate well-made clothing, and inevitably chose wools and silks and cottons that whispered comfortably against his skin. And sometimes, with the sun warm on his face, Aziraphale would close his eyes and sigh in a way that betrayed a happiness in the physical sensation of it that far outstripped anything Crowley could have conjured up to tempt a human towards the pleasures of the flesh. No, Aziraphale had never had any trouble giving his body the things it wanted. Crowley was almost envious of the ease of their cohabitation -- though envy was another sin, though, so that was okay. It was just that what Crowley’s body wanted was, mainly, Aziraphale, and on that front Crowley had been keeping it disappointed for several millennia.

“So, should we…” Crowley extended his hand, the one Aziraphale had been holding, had held for more than an hour while Crowley crackled with quiet luxurious misery beside him.

Aziraphale’s face softened a bit, his lips parted and his tongue darted out, wetting the bottom one nervously. “Yes, I think --” he held out his hand, “yes, and then --”

Crowley could feel it, humming like electricity, the holy space surrounding Aziraphale’s fingers as he reached out to touch them. As always when Aziraphale willed the gesture and Crowley knew it was coming, the sensation was a warm pressure before the warm pressure of the touch itself, an envelope of air with a clear, gentle edge: The Line. They crossed it together this time, as they had eleven years before in the bookshop, and took one another’s hands.

As the angel’s hot skin embraced his palm, and the shimmering Line, negotiated into pliancy, curved into a joined bubble surrounding them both, Crowley wondered for the first time what Aziraphale felt coming off him -- what his own Line felt like, to the angel. He hoped it was as pleasant as this, this low simmer.

“How do we --”

“I’m not sure what --”

They both spoke at once, stopped. Aziraphale’s thumb stroked the back of Crowley’s hand, an echo. Crowley squeezed reassuringly and met his eyes, realising that he’d been so focused on the feeling that he hadn’t really clocked the angel’s expression for a minute or so. Aziraphale’s eyes were dark, his cheeks pink. Aziraphale looked... mellow. Aroused? Oh, shit.

Crowley squirmed and Aziraphale’s eyes flicked to his mouth, just for a second.

“I think perhaps we should try, hm, extending our fields further? Inside. That is to say -- inside one another.” Aziraphale was getting pinker by the second.

“Fields?”

“Yes, the -- why, what do you call it?”

“The Line,” Crowley murmured. “You want to try to... yeah, all right.” Words were abandoning him quickly. It made sense though. The Line -- the fields, he supposed -- were metaphysical manifestations of their essence that extended past their corporations and went wherever their corporations went. Give them a tug, maybe the rest would follow?

Crowley gasped as Aziraphale shoved forward. His body didn’t move but some invisible part of him was all over Crowley, up his arm and across his chest, everything hot and tingling, and The Line leapt to Crowley’s defence, grinding back against the intrusion.

“Ha,” Aziraphale breathed, from sixteen inches away, a fine sheen of sweat breaking out just below his hairline.

“Nnng,” Crowley managed, trying to relax. His nipples were hard. His skin prickled all over. His hand clasped Aziraphale’s and the only thing he wanted in the world right now was to pull him into his lap and kiss him senseless. No time. Crowley exhaled, willed himself pliant. _A receptive body_. Aziraphale went deeper, another push, sharp at the start and then ebbing away gradually into slow ripples.

In the middle of the 18th century, Crowley had passed several decades in Venice. The first time he’d boarded a gondola, in the arms of a fat, fair, and funny widow he’d been tempting, he’d been amused and then enthralled by the motion of it, by far the most erotic means of transport he’d ever experienced. Every stroke of the gondolier’s oar as it pushed off the canal floor was like the thrust of a lover’s hips, the slow, sure shove of it moving the boat, his body, the body pressed against his in a gentle but inexorable glide that undulated with the waves and gradually stilled until the next stroke. The long, slow fuck of it enticed him for years.

Now, as Aziraphale, push, push, pushed into him somehow on a subatomic level, as Crowley’s tiniest component parts were being shoved aside to make space for everything that was Aziraphale, Crowley felt that feeling again. The long, slow fuck of it. Only it wasn’t a gondola ride. It was Aziraphale.

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice was far away and right on top of him, possibly inside him. “Crowley, you have to…”

“Right.” Crowley wasn’t sure he still had a mouth, not his own one anyway. But he had a job to do here, remember what this was all for. Couldn’t let the angel play with fire, not on his own. Crowley concentrated, gathered up what he thought of as his defence screen, and pushed back. He tried to make it gentle, just a little press from his hand into Aziraphale’s arm at first. The Line roared up in response. So did Aziraphale.

“God!” he shouted, and Crowley backed off immediately. “No, no, please -- don’t -- er.” Aziraphale panted. “It’s good. Please, ahm. Continue.”

With the part of himself that could still see, Crowley noted that Aziraphale’s pulse was throbbing in his reddened neck, his eyes glassy, his pupils blown. Why, why was this so hot?

Crowley pressed in again, listening to Aziraphale’s breathing as it sped up in response, then slowed as Aziraphale relaxed to let him in. Every particle of Crowley vibrated with energy, driving inexorably forward and simultaneously deepening, opening, enfolding as Aziraphale drove into him.

The edges of Crowley had merged with the edges of Aziraphale, even though the only place they were touching was still that small clasp of hands. Crowley closed his eyes, concentrating. He tried to push with the same, slow, careful rhythm that Aziraphale was using to slip inside him: a held breath, and then a small, renewed press inwards, among the particles of light that surrounded Aziraphale. Then a pause, and then another push. It felt indescribably strange to sink like this into the reality of Aziraphale’s body; and then Aziraphale, from behind the darkness of Crowley’s closed eyes, made a small, bitten-off little noise. Crowley was about to apologise, instinctively, but it hadn’t been a noise of pain or displeasure, it was -- oh, it sounded like all sorts of things that Crowley tried desperately not to think about. He bit his lip, instead.

There was a moment, in the centre of everything, where they hung in perfect balance. Aziraphale was Crowley, and Crowley was Aziraphale, and yet they were still themselves. Crowley could feel both Aziraphale’s Line and his own Line, both of them overlapping, complaining at the intimacy, quivering in puzzled, suspended confusion. It was almost a peaceful feeling, despite everything. Although Crowley wasn’t sure which body, if any, he was residing in, he could still feel Aziraphale holding his hand.

And then all of a sudden, the equilibrium broke. Crowley felt himself tugged forward, immediate and breathless, plunging entirely into Aziraphale. He made a shocked, strangled noise of surprise, but it felt somehow odd to do so, and it sounded odd in his throat. And when he opened his eyes, they weren’t his eyes at all.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, only it wasn’t Aziraphale -- only it _was_ Aziraphale, speaking with Crowley’s voice, from inside Crowley’s body, which was looking directly at Crowley. Crowley blinked, astonished, at the sight of himself. “Oh, my.”

Crowley looked down at their joined hands. When he twitched his fingers, it was Aziraphale’s fingers, clean and pink, that moved.

“Fuuuuck,” said Crowley, on a low, amazed breath, but it was the angel’s voice that said it. And that in itself was -- wrong. Good. Bad. Both. Crowley’s unthinking obscenity in Aziraphale’s mouth. He felt a renewed twitch of arousal at the thought, and then tried immediately to swallow back several more thoughts, because he had just become aware that this body, Aziraphale’s body, had a cock. But it wasn’t the time to think about that now -- to wonder whether it had just been the corporation’s default setting, or whether Aziraphale preferred it, and why that might be; and whether Aziraphale, in Crowley’s body, had already noticed his cunt, and whether this whole experience had left it unavoidably wet, or --

Crowley pulled his hand away from Aziraphale’s, suddenly burning. Both of them flexed their fingers, readjusting to the separation.

“There we go,” said Aziraphale, in Crowley’s own voice -- and it made him sound strange, glib and casual in a way that Aziraphale had probably never sounded before, although Crowley could hear the shakiness behind it. “That wasn’t so difficult after all, was it?”

“No,” Crowley agreed. He had no idea what the right word for any of that was, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t _difficult_. “Was that -- er -- comparable to the last time you did this? With Madame Tracy? Same sort of deal, felt like that?”

Aziraphale cleared Crowley’s throat. “Not as such,” he said, shifting a little in his seat. “It didn’t feel like very much at all, the last time, to be honest. This was rather more... collaborative. I’m not entirely sure this _is_ a possession, actually, now that we’re here. It’s more of an… exchange.”

“Like housesitting,” said Crowley, smiling. Oh, that was nice, getting Aziraphale’s face to smile. It did it so easily.

“Yes, if you like.” Aziraphale sat up a little taller -- good luck to him trying to get that spine to stay straight -- and then looked down at his hands, his arms, his feet. Crowley’s body. His yellow eyes didn’t blink as he took it all in, or as they flicked back to look at Crowley again. “Something happens, doesn’t it, when we touch?” he said. He spoke quietly and carefully, but with surprising directness. Not a prevarication in sight. Crowley wondered, fleetingly, if there was something about being out of his body that helped Aziraphale to do it. Something, even, about being in Crowley’s. The thought warmed him a little.

“Yeah, angel,” said Crowley. “It’s The Line, isn’t it. The fields. Like you were saying.”

“Those are supposed to protect us,” said Aziraphale, slowly.

“And keep us apart,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale drew in a long breath. Then he folded his hands in his lap, a gesture so familiar on the angel and so exceedingly strange to see his own body perform that it made Crowley’s head hurt. “Well,” Aziraphale said, “It hasn’t done very well at that. Not now that we’re -- on the same side.”

Crowley felt his breath catch in his throat. It seemed there were all sorts of things Aziraphale could say once he was no longer in the pleasant confinement of his own body. “Yeah. Well.”

“If we survive this,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley opened his mouth, but Aziraphale wouldn’t let him interrupt, “ _After_ we survive this, I would very much like to touch you again.”

Crowley’s mouth was still open. He closed it. Then he opened it again, but he still hadn’t quite produced a coherent response to that. “Uh,” he said. “Yeah. Um.” He swallowed. His brain was whirring in a desperate wheel of surprise and want and relief and love and fear and surprise again, for good measure. But eventually he did say, “Aziraphale, if we -- what if we don’t…?”

Aziraphale set Crowley’s mouth into a firmer, straighter, more determined line than Crowley thought he’d ever managed himself, and said, “We will.”

\--

They did.

It was a little more than twelve hours later, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and they were both alive. Ridiculous, unbelievable. Two small beings against the assembled forces of creation, destruction and everything in between. And yet here they still were.

It had been interesting, being Aziraphale. Pleasing. Freeing, rather. His corporation had seemed to move very lightly, buoyed forward by a kind of rightness of place about it, a comfort in its own existence. But Crowley was out of it, now, back in his own familiar streak of skin and bone, and Aziraphale’s body was by his side, with Aziraphale in it. The bookshop was standing. The Bentley didn’t have a scratch on it. Everything was normal, and they were going for lunch.

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, with pleasure, as they approached the Ritz, the letters picked out in the archway ahead of them.

“What are you thinking?” said Crowley, as they crossed the road. “Steak? Fish? Both?”

“Oh, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, with a sudden little burst of something in his voice, and Crowley turned to look at him.

Crowley was used to looking at the side of Aziraphale’s face. Quick, unblinking glances, or the indulgence of a stretched-out moment, Aziraphale’s attention occupied elsewhere. Aziraphale, he thought, would be looking into the restaurant, imagining steak or fish or both; or perhaps looking at the weekend bustle of Piccadilly around them, revelling in the fact that it was all still here. But Aziraphale was gazing straight at Crowley, an expression of something like wonder on his face. An unbroken, open stare, briefly heedless of anything else. Crowley hadn’t seen the angel look at him like that since, oh, perhaps 1793 -- when he’d thought, for a wild moment, that Aziraphale might have caught up with him.

But back then, once they’d got out of that cell, Aziraphale had packed it all away again. He’d smiled at Crowley over that lunch, but fleetingly, eyes darting away from him as soon as they settled anywhere, and Crowley had begun to wonder if he’d imagined the unabashed, hungry look Aziraphale had turned on him when he’d first appeared. But he was pretty sure he was seeing it on the angel again now, mingled with a new, sweet edge of joy.

They’d stopped walking under the arcade, just outside the entrance to the restaurant, and Crowley couldn’t do anything but gaze right back at Aziraphale. “What?” he said, quietly.

“It’s nothing,” said Aziraphale. “Just you. Just -- ”

And then Aziraphale reached out and once again took Crowley by the hand. It was quick and sudden, and almost before Crowley had registered it was happening, Aziraphale’s hand was in his. The Line flared up in token protest at the surprise of it, a brief, hot zing, starting somewhere in the centre of Crowley’s palm and then shooting outwards through the rest of his body. He gasped, and Aziraphale drew in a sharp breath, too. Then it settled, the heat receding, although there was still a faint crackle of something like electricity tickling Crowley’s hand where they were pressed together.

Aziraphale was still staring at him, his eyes wide open, drinking him in. His lips parted, but he didn’t say anything. But then he squeezed Crowley’s hand tighter. Harder, until his fingers were all but gripping, until another wave of futile resistance zipped in a tingle through Crowley’s body.

“Uh,” said Crowley, and realised his voice was coming out rather strangled. “Angel.”

“I want...” said Aziraphale, and he sounded a little thready too. After a moment, it became clear he wasn’t going to finish the sentence. But that, Crowley thought, was enough in itself, after millennia of denial. _I want._ Yeah. Crowley could believe that.

“You know, we could...” said Crowley, swallowing, and turned his head to the left, just slightly. Aziraphale followed the direction of his gaze as it slid past the doors of the restaurant, and over to the glass-fronted entrance to the hotel. Up the steps, past the doorman, into the thick-carpeted opulence of the lobby. The reception desk.

Aziraphale drew in another breath. Then he said, “I think that -- a room may have just become available.”

Crowley’s chest struggled to contain something awkwardly large and ardent. His skin chafed in his clothes. His tongue, normally nimble if not what you’d call typical, was momentarily too big for his mouth. He hoped his face wasn’t doing something completely ridiculous. He pressed Aziraphale’s hand and then placed his other at the small of the angel’s back, guiding him gently, the way he’d always wanted to.

Aziraphale’s courage seemed to falter a bit at the desk, so it was Crowley who charmed the receptionist, Crowley who waved his slightly imaginary credit card and accepted the room key -- “we’ll just need the one, thanks. No, no luggage.”

A variety of mortifying smiles were attempting to escape his face at this time: a roguish grin at the receptionist that would surely be entirely consumed by an ear-to-ear beam of joy, with teeth and all, should he let himself slip for an instant. A wild giddiness bubbled in Crowley’s chest as he pocketed the room key and turned to see Aziraphale not even attempting to smother his delight. Crowley, who had had to drop Aziraphale’s hand in order to sign for the room, took it again. The Line moved aside this time as Aziraphale welcomed him in, but then Aziraphale squeezed -- and there it was again, that warning fizz up his arm.

Alone with Aziraphale in the lift, Crowley pulled the angel a little closer, until they were pressed together, belly to belly. The Line flared up in alarm and electric tingles shot out in all directions, then quieted as Aziraphale slowly brought up his free hand to stroke Crowley’s cheek. “My dear,” he began, and Crowley watched his lips move, that soft pink mouth parting gently, and he leaned in a bit more against The Line’s friction, smelling the angel’s fresh rain smell... and the lift dinged as they reached their floor.

Aziraphale smiled sheepishly, his eyes reverting to that old familiar pattern, looking away -- and Crowley couldn’t resist. Surrendering to one of his most pervasive impulses of the last century, he leaned in and straightened Aziraphale’s (already perfectly horizontal) bow tie for him. After decades of itchy fingers (centuries if you wanted to count the cravats), it was frankly magical to get his hands on that little scrap of fabric, and when Aziraphale looked back at him and positively _twinkled_ , it was all Crowley could do not to tug it undone right then and there.

“Quick, Crowley, the doors!”

Crowley got his foot between them just before they closed.

“Thank you. Don’t misunderstand me, I appreciate the splendour of the Ritz’s lobby but I have no desire to see it again at the moment.”

 _What do you have a desire for,_ Crowley thought but did not ask, although he supposed that was the sort of thing he could get away with now.

The room was rather overdone for Crowley’s taste, but it could have been dripping in even more rococo nonsense for all he cared. As soon as the door was shut behind them, Aziraphale pressed him against it, both hands against his chest, and the floodlit sensation he’d felt at Tadfield Manor came roaring back, everything glowing as his Line ground back in futile vigilance against Aziraphale’s. He tingled all over and his cunt was on fucking fire.

“Angel --”

“Good Lord,” Aziraphale gasped, “this is -- surely it’s not meant to feel like this, is it?”

He’d gone pink in the face and his breath was coming fast; quite different, Crowley couldn’t help but remark, to how Aziraphale had looked in Tadfield when he’d been the one shoved against the wall. Maybe the sensation was more vivid for the one doing the shoving?

Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s arms and walked him back into the nearest wall. The Line raged at him as soon as he moved his hands, vibration from his fingers where they wrapped around Aziraphale’s biceps all through his torso and centring in his aching, empty cunt. As he had in Tadfield, he made sure not to push too hard so Aziraphale wouldn’t get hurt. But something about the almost-violence of the gesture, not just its unexpectedness, seemed to ratchet up the intensity of the experience.

Abruptly, Crowley recalled a fragment of demonic lore, a smutty bit of legend from the first war, concerning the violation of The Line in battle. “Stabbed me in the shoulder and came all over me,” Crowley could hear Nicor in his mind clear as day, and that was absolutely NOT what he wanted to be thinking about just now.

“Do it again,” Aziraphale said, breaking off that train of thought. The angel’s voice was soft and rough. “Only this time, kiss me, like you wanted to.”

That sent all trains of thought straight off a bridge. Blindly, Crowley fisted Aziraphale’s coat and shoved him into the wall. Aziraphale, with a grunt of impatience, reached up and ripped his glasses off his face. The Line keened in outrage and Crowley’s pants were abruptly drenched. Crowley grabbed Aziraphale by the jaw and kissed him. Sparks shot up, flaring into Crowley’s hand, his lips, everywhere they touched, and Crowley seemed almost to hear the grinding noise as their boundaries shuddered against one another. Aziraphale moaned, opening his mouth, and Crowley’s heart clenched in disbelieving joy as he swept his tongue in to taste him. Aziraphale clutched at his head and shoulder, drawing them closer together, and now Crowley was the one doing the moaning. Aziraphale _wanted_. He’d said so. But it was one thing to hear it.

Crowley released his tight grip on Aziraphale’s jaw and slid his hand into the dandelion fluff of Aziraphale’s hair, soft as anything. He wound his other arm round Aziraphale’s middle, feeling the firmness of him under the layer of softness under the layers and layers of fabric. The angel went right on kissing him, leaning into his touch, and Crowley’s heart was going fast and hard and his breath was going fast and hard and The Line, he suddenly noticed, was gone. When had it gone?

“Crowley,” murmured Aziraphale, “May I conduct an experiment?”

“Hmm?” said Crowley. He wondered if this was what Aziraphale thought was dirty talk. Frankly, Aziraphale could murmur anything in this voice, pressed close, his breath fluttering against Crowley’s lips, and it practically was. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

“Would you allow me to manhandle you?”

“Oh, is that what you call this?”

“No,” said Aziraphale, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I mean -- I’d like to do to you what you just did to me.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, mouth suddenly dry at the thought of it, of Aziraphale getting anything close to rough with him, of a little bit of that angelic strength leaking out. “Um, go ahead.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat, and ran his hands reverently, gently, down the front of Crowley’s chest, over his jacket. He curled his fingers into Crowley’s lapels, frowned in concentration, and then -- _wham_. Aziraphale had pushed forward, peeling them both away from the wall, his whole body propelling Crowley’s along with it, and then turned them about, reversing their positions. Crowley felt the back of his shoulders hit the wall, and then the base of his spine, as he was plastered against the wallpaper.

But that sensation was nothing compared to what The Line was doing. Alarm bells, red flashing lights, heat flooding his body once again in a wild panic of adrenaline. It was like being electrified. Even his teeth were singing with it. “ _Oh_ ,” he gasped out, “Oh my -- ”

Aziraphale, arms outstretched, holding Crowley against the wall in front of him, was breathing very hard. “You can feel that?” he said.

“Yeah, I can _feel_ that, holy fucking -- ”

The intensity was ebbing away, slowly, as they stood still; but when Aziraphale shoved himself forward into the little pocket of space between them, chest-to-chest with Crowley once again, it flared back up. Crowley groaned.

“Right,” said Aziraphale, sounding as though he were trying very hard not to sound exactly as wrecked as Crowley felt. He gasped, tightening his hands in Crowley’s jacket. “So this is -- interesting.”

Crowley leaned in and kissed him again, and Aziraphale, caught off guard, moaned again too. “’Sgood,” said Crowley, in the understatement of the century.

“It’s trying to,” said Aziraphale, “ _protect_ us from each other, I think -- when it registers a threat -- ”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed, scraping his teeth against Aziraphale’s jawline, and feeling the corresponding flicker of heat in them both. “Hngh. Want me to keep threatening you?”

“Please,” breathed Aziraphale.

Crowley slid his hand back slowly into Aziraphale’s hair. He indulged for a moment in letting his fingers simply play through the soft, yielding curls of it, brushing gently against Aziraphale’s scalp, Aziraphale sighing at the contact. And then suddenly Crowley tightened his fist around a handful of hair; and Aziraphale yelped, not so much in pain as in surprise, as another pulse of jagged energy shot through them both.

A moment later, Aziraphale’s knee was jostling its way between Crowley’s legs, pushing firmly upwards, not quite hard enough to hurt but more than hard enough to make Crowley bend forward in sudden, shocked sensation, his upper body against Aziraphale’s. The Line was doing a very good impression of the recently-conflagrated M25. Crowley made a sound that he would prefer not to categorise as a whimper, but would probably have to do so if pressed, as Aziraphale’s knee and thigh rocked deliberately between his legs.

Burning hot, turned on out of his mind, and wild with freedom, Crowley grabbed one end of Aziraphale’s bow tie, tugging it loose -- and Aziraphale tilted his chin upwards in assent, letting Crowley pull it all the way off. It was exactly how Crowley had always imagined it, _better_ than Crowley had always imagined it, as if Aziraphale knew exactly what he wanted, and, fuck, maybe he did, maybe that stray thought had been left rattling around somewhere inside him when they’d borrowed each other’s bodies for the night. Uncharted territory, this; who could say how much they might have left behind in one another? One thing he knew for certain: something had changed for Aziraphale since then.

The Line didn’t seem to be registering the removal of Aziraphale’s bow tie as much of an attack, which showed what it knew about Aziraphale. This was the armour coming off, if anything was. Crowley tugged open the top couple of buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt, pushed his head down, and pressed his mouth to the bared patch of skin at the base of Aziraphale’s neck. Ah, _that_ the Line had something to say about, another panicked little burst of electricity zinging through Aziraphale’s skin and into Crowley’s tongue. _Chill, guys_ , thought Crowley, slightly hysterically, as Aziraphale’s breath stuttered above him, and he sucked a hot, wet, biting kiss into his skin. _I’m not going to rip his throat out. I’m just going to get him off._

Crowley felt one of Aziraphale’s hands between them, fingers skittering over the slice of exposed skin at the top of Crowley’s own chest, and he smiled, and sucked harder. Aziraphale made a soft, desperate noise, and clutched at Crowley’s scarf, his hand winding into it; and then, with a sharp yank, Crowley found his head jerked upwards, his scarf tight in Aziraphale’s fist and digging into the skin of his neck. The Line crackled, infuriated, and Crowley hissed in delight.

“This is...” said Aziraphale, voice low and wondering and wavering, and then swallowed. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“Don’t suppose anything exactly like this has happened before.” Crowley ground forward again to illustrate his point, wriggling so that his crotch rubbed as directly as possible against Aziraphale’s thigh, tinglingly good and yet not nearly good enough. He was wet through, and fuck, he realised he wanted Aziraphale to _know_ , wanted Aziraphale’s understanding to seep into every part of him, spread him out and see right through him. Maybe Aziraphale already did. Aziraphale had already walked in his shoes in the most literal sense, after all. Snakeskin, size 10.

Aziraphale, keening quietly as Crowley rode his leg, pushed his own hips forward, the crotch of his pressed beige trousers against Crowley’s hip. Which felt brilliant, although not exactly as he’d expected. Crowley had some idea of what Aziraphale’s cock looked like now, of course. Or at least he thought he did. He hadn’t actually _looked_ , hadn’t quite trusted himself to remove a single layer of Aziraphale’s armour even when he’d been the one wearing it, but, well -- he’d been the one wearing it. Aziraphale’s cock had felt as at home with itself as the rest of his body, neat and trim and perhaps a little on the thick side, and actually Crowley had done extraordinarily well, thank you, at not thinking in too much detail about whether it would get thicker when it was hard, and in not attempting to find out first hand. But anyway, the point was -- the point was -- he couldn’t quite feel --

“Can I?” said Crowley, his hand skating down to the place where Aziraphale’s hips were stuttering against him. Aziraphale nodded frantically, and Crowley slid his hand between his legs, the heel of his palm against the twill of Aziraphale’s trousers, and -- bingo. He’d thought so. No cock. “Hmm,” said Crowley, “You were... different, yesterday. Half an hour ago, actually.”

“Well, the world hasn’t ended. I thought perhaps there was no better time to refresh things a little.”

“Uh huh,” said Crowley. “I get it.” He grinned and bit his lip, flooded by the thought of -- “Did you like wearing mine?”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, half a gasp, as he pushed forward against Crowley’s hand. “Well…”

“Did you touch it?” Crowley murmured, half just riffing on the theme in the hope of deepening the pink flush in Aziraphale’s cheeks, half desperate to know. “After I left?” Aziraphale shook his head. “You should’ve,” said Crowley. “Wouldn’t’ve minded. You can touch any of me, you can have -- ”

 _\-- all of me_ , Crowley was fairly sure he’d been about to say, and so perhaps it was a relief that Aziraphale chose that exact moment to take Crowley at his word, and run the knuckle of his index finger in a firm curve between Crowley’s own legs, along the seam of his jeans. Crowley exhaled in startled pleasure, and again when Aziraphale began unfastening his flies.

“I didn’t touch you,” said Aziraphale, sounding slightly urgent. “I was waiting for today, I wanted you to be here too -- ” Crowley hung his head and groaned, although this only gave him a better view of Aziraphale’s fingers peeling open his jeans. “And,” said Aziraphale, clearing his throat, “I thought it might be nice for us to match. That perhaps you liked it this way.”

This was both so endearing and so completely misguided that Crowley hardly knew what to do with himself. “We -- we always match,” he stammered, as the tips of Aziraphale’s fingers traced the bare skin below his navel and the sensation feathered down through his labia. “No matter what you’re wearing.” Crowley moved his hand against Aziraphale’s mound more intentionally now, slowly letting his fingers slide down to cup him where he’d feel it. He went gently, so The Line would nudge aside and Aziraphale would feel the pure physical sensation, as Crowley was feeling it now. Aziraphale gasped and moved to mirror Crowley, pressing through his underwear against his lips, against his fervid clit beneath. Another flood of slick sluiced out of Crowley and assuredly all over Aziraphale’s hand.

“Oh, fuck,” Aziraphale whispered. Crowley lifted his eyes to the angel’s face and found his head tipped back, eyes wide and unfocused, jaw slack, as though receiving a benediction himself instead of granting Crowley every wish he’d ever prayed for. Then Aziraphale’s fingers were scrabbling roughly to push his pants down, aside, and The Line flared up and sizzled through Crowley like a flaming fucking sword.

“Ah!” he yelped, as Aziraphale made a strangled noise and thrust his cunt mindlessly into Crowley’s hand. Then they were both pulling at clothes and everything quickly got ridiculous -- both of them positively liquid now and desperate to get at more skin while The Line tried to interfere with all but the most gentle attempts to disrobe. Aziraphale, however, seemed to _want_ The Line’s interference.

“My dear,” he panted, “are you -- _attached_ to this shirt?”

“Huh?” Crowley kissed his throat, scraping his teeth there and drawing a little shiver from the angel. “Not especially.” He had his hand inside Aziraphale’s trousers now but hadn’t worked out how to get inside his drawers. He pressed his middle finger along the gusset, tiny rhythmic pulses against Aziraphale’s clit. “Why?”

Aziraphale growled, took hold of Crowley’s shirt at the neck, and tore it to pieces. The Line went wild, a wall of flame that started where the shirt parted and crested over his face. Aziraphale staggered forward with a great cry, both hands on Crowley’s naked shoulders, and flattened himself against Crowley, until the buttons of his waistcoat dug into Crowley’s chest. Aziraphale bit a sucking kiss into Crowley’s neck, moaning. Crowley finally got past the buttons (buttons!) of his underwear, slid his hand in past the soft wet curls and got a feel of him, luscious and soaking, his clit fat and hard against Crowley’s thumb.

“Please, please,” Aziraphale moaned unhelpfully, trembling against him and kissing his jaw, his chin, his cheek. The Line had once again receded into the background as their touches turned tender and slow. “Please,” Aziraphale said again, “I want you inside me.”

Something small and delicate broke inside Crowley, something he hadn’t realised he was still holding onto. His heart opened wide as the sky and he sucked the angel’s lower lip into his mouth. His angel.

“Yeah. Yes, of course,” he murmured, gathering up Aziraphale’s wetness on his middle finger, and sliding it carefully into his vestibule. The Line crackled in warning, and Aziraphale shoved his hips forward and took Crowley to the third knuckle. Electric fire raced up his arm and into his heart, and Crowley remembered moving into Aziraphale with his Line the way they’d done when they’d inhabited one another the night before -- _are you saying you want my body, angel_ \-- push, push, pushing forward with his microscopic parts until he was inside Aziraphale in every way he could be.

“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale was saying, his hips making small movements and Crowley curled his finger and thrust in and up, in and up, and pressed Aziraphale’s clit with every stroke. “My dear,” Aziraphale breathed, his face flushed, eyes opening suddenly to regard the ruin he’d made of Crowley, shirt in pieces, breath heaving. “Oh, my darling,” and Crowley barely had a moment to register that before Aziraphale said, “more.”

Crowley gave him another finger and the heat of The Line raged through him. They both yelped at once, taking a moment to relish it before Crowley began stroking faster, harder. Aziraphale’s clit felt huge as he worked the hood back. Crowley wanted more room to work. He wanted both hands on his angel. He wanted to give him everything.

With his free hand, he started gently undoing the buttons of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, trying not to disturb the delicate fraying buttonholes, a totally counterintuitive process that threw off his groove a little. It wasn’t as if Aziraphale would allow him to tear his clothes off, no matter what exciting things that might do to The Line. He had standards. But a moment later, all their remaining clothes had been banished at a click of Aziraphale’s fingers.

Aziraphale had a body that looked like it was designed to be naked. Which, Crowley supposed, it was. He was startlingly beautiful, all soft skin and smooth curves, gleaming like marble. Only he was also very warm, quite unlike marble, hot all over, and particularly where Crowley’s fingers were still pressed inside him, disappearing in amongst a little bank of pale curls.

Crowley looked up to see the angel’s hazy smile as his warm hands stroked down Crowley’s bare body. Crowley smiled in return, and then very gently drew his fingers out of him.

“What are you doing?” said Aziraphale. “Don’t -- don’t stop now.”

“Don’t you want to come to bed?”

Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth, as if hearing the words had sent as sudden a pulse of longed-for, shivering excitement through him as much as saying them had sent one through Crowley. He looked behind him at the bed in question: queen-sized, cream and gold, and positively begging to be made a mess of.

“In a moment,” said Aziraphale, turning back to face him. “But I’d like to -- first...” And then he kissed Crowley hard again, those warm hands tight on Crowley’s shoulders, the electric brush of his skin all over Crowley’s as they pressed together, as Crowley’s bare arse was pressed into the wall behind them. “I’ve been wondering,” Aziraphale murmured against his mouth, “Or I suppose for much of this week I’ve been remembering -- or, well, imagining -- what might have happened if perhaps you hadn’t been interrupted, the first time -- ”

Crowley had been so overwhelmed by the shock of it all, back at Tadfield Manor, that he was pretty sure he would have had to interrupt himself if the nun hadn’t arrived to do it for them. Stressed and jittery and turned on all at once: probably not his suavest hour. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a do-over. Not if Aziraphale had apparently spent the past few days fantasising, in the monumentally little spare time he had, about Crowley fucking him against a wall. Satan Almighty.

Crowley growled in the back of his throat. His hands were at Aziraphale’s hips, two fingers wet where they pressed into his skin, and he turned them both around again. Aziraphale made a little noise of pleasure as The Line protested at his being moved, and then being held in place against the wallpaper, and then at Crowley’s fingers slipping straight back inside him.

“Like this?” Crowley said, grinning, as he began to move his hand again. “This what _you_ would have done if we hadn’t been interrupted? Got both of us naked in an ex-convent?”

“Ex-Satanic convent,” breathed Aziraphale, as if this made a difference. Then he gasped, and said, “Can you -- harder?”

Crowley went harder. He sped up the movement of his fingers, revelling in the way Aziraphale’s body was opening up so wantingly around him, and then he accompanied a firm press of his thumb against the angel’s clit with a third finger inside. Aziraphale clenched around him, groaning. Then with one hand he found his way into Crowley’s hair, pulling at a handful of it like Crowley had done to him earlier. The Line sizzled hot between them, in Crowley’s scalp and Aziraphale’s clenched hand and _Crowley’s_ hand and the muscles of Aziraphale’s cunt.

“Oh, _God_ ,” said Aziraphale, “ _Fuck_ , that’s -- ”

Crowley’s cunt, still squeezing around nothing, was alight; what it must feel like for Aziraphale was almost unimaginable, only Crowley had a very good imagination.

He leaned in and kissed Aziraphale’s dazed-looking face on the lips, quite soft this time, feeling Aziraphale mouth back at him. Then he slid his other hand back into the fluff of Aziraphale’s hair, twisting it between his fingers and tugging, so that Aziraphale’s head fell backwards, throat exposed; and he scraped his teeth down the gleaming white column of it until he was sucking again at that bitten patch of skin by Aziraphale’s collarbone.

The Line shook through them again, outraged and powerless to stop them. Crowley felt as though the muscles all through his body were shaking, sparked by some electrical current. He bit down harder than he meant to against Aziraphale’s skin, and the three fingers inside Aziraphale’s cunt pushed deeper into the warmth of him, curling firm against a rough patch that made Aziraphale cry out. And then Aziraphale -- still crying out -- began to spasm around him, coming in hard, relentless waves that made Crowley wonder if he’d entirely misunderstood the concept of divine ecstasy.

Crowley worked his hand urgently, disbelievingly, lifting his mouth from Aziraphale’s chest so he could look at him -- the angel’s head thrown back, mouth open, eyes shut. Crowley was making him come. Aziraphale was _letting_ him. Aziraphale was gripping him desperately once again, tearing rhythmically at Crowley’s hair as he shuddered through his peak. Then he collapsed against the wall and pulled Crowley into a messy kiss, Crowley’s hand pinned between them and still moving slowly inside him until Aziraphale got a grip on his wrist and held it fast. Crowley felt his heart beating in his ears, in his hands, under his tongue where Aziraphale was sucking on it.

At last Aziraphale broke the kiss, breathing heavily, eyes opening to sparkle softly at Crowley. And then Crowley’s feet left the floor as Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, lifted him as easily as a dinner plate, one arm under his back and the other cradling his knees, and _threw_ him onto the bed with considerable angelic strength.

The Line went mad. Crowley barely registered anything else as the sensation slammed into his body, centring on his clit and vibrating out in a giant shockwave that shredded his dignity in an instant. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, angel, please, touch me, I’m so close.”

Aziraphale, who had gasped with surprise when he’d lifted Crowley and shouted with pleasure when he’d thrown him, kneeled up on the bed, chest heaving, and regarded Crowley, one hand stroking slowly up Crowley’s inner thigh as Crowley chewed his lip and churned his hips. Then Aziraphale put his fingers into his mouth, and Crowley had that gorgeous picture to look at for a moment before those warm slick fingers slipped over his clit and Crowley slammed his eyes shut.

Aziraphale was everywhere. Light, rapid strokes feathering over his clit; hot deep pressure curling into his cunt, and now a slippery finger at his arsehole, nudging him open there, until it felt like the angel was in him up to both wrists. As every part of his body was breached, The Line objected in the strongest possible terms, flaring in impotent rage, condemning them both to searing delight. And Aziraphale was good, so good, beating perfect time to Crowley’s rhythm, building the intensity on his clit now, opening him and filling him up. Crowley could feel Aziraphale’s hot mouth at his navel, over his ribs, tongue grazing a nipple. Aziraphale bit down, The Line ignited, and Crowley came, clenching, taking Aziraphale into himself in wave after wave.

There was a roaring in his ears. He was still full of Aziraphale everywhere, those soft strong hands still urging him on, pulling the aftershocks out of him until Crowley flailed and hauled Aziraphale down on top of him. The Line fizzed weakly and dissipated. Aziraphale chuckled.

“That was even better than I expected,” Aziraphale said.

“Than you _expected,_ ” Crowley repeated, agape.

Aziraphale propped himself on an elbow and played with Crowley’s hair, and what a rat’s nest it must be now, Crowley didn’t like to think. “Please don’t misunderstand me, my dear. I’ve never taken you for granted. I meant the way our fields responded when I picked you up.”

“You do seem to enjoy these little ‘experiments’.” Crowley made sure the inverted commas were audible.

Aziraphale blinked fetchingly. “Do you mean to say you didn’t?”

Crowley got his hand into Aziraphale’s curls and pulled him into a kiss, as tender and devastating as he could make it. The angel went breathless and pliant in his arms. When Crowley broke the kiss, Aziraphale chased his mouth and Crowley smiled and gave him another, cupping Aziraphale’s face and stroking a plump cheek with his thumb.

“‘Course I did,” Crowley said eventually, holding that blue gaze until he went lump-throated.

“I wonder,” Aziraphale said in a quieter tone, looking down to where his hand was tracing little circles on Crowley’s chest. “I wonder if it has to be that way every time. With the fields, I mean, or, what did you call it, The Line. Do you think we’ll always have to navigate it?”

Crowley swallowed. _Every time_ and _always_. “Well, I think it will be if we want it to, but not... all the time. Like now, we're touching all over, but you can't feel it, can you?”

Aziraphale looked at him. “No, you’re right. I can’t. All I feel is…” he smiled. “You.”

Crowley kissed him again before he could smile back or say something ridiculous like _all I feel is you and that’s the only thing I ever want to feel_. The luxury of kissing Aziraphale, just kissing him, was making Crowley feel a bit drunk. He took Aziraphale’s lower lip into his mouth and nibbled it gently, then swept his tongue along the tender inner lip, learning the silk of his skin there, the shape of his teeth. Aziraphale made a little noise and threaded a hand back into his hair, not tugging now but stroking. His eyes were open, as Crowley’s were; Crowley couldn’t bear not to see his angel now, even in blurry extreme close up.

“See?” said Crowley, as he pulled back just a little, and pressed another kiss to the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. “Like that, nice and slow… it’s just us. No defence mechanism trying to get in on the act.”

“Just us,” Aziraphale repeated, something rather thick in his voice. His hand, still in Crowley’s hair, moved restively. “My dear, it’s -- been _us_ for a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Um,” said Crowley, his chest tightening.

“Our side, you said. You’ve been saying it for so long, and I… I have been listening, Crowley. I promise. It’s just been… difficult.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, softly. “Well. Complicated, isn’t it. Great big alarm system that thinks we’re not supposed to touch each other, for example. I see how it’s hard not to assume we _are_ on opposite sides.”

“Do you think it might fade?” Aziraphale asked. “If we’re really left alone, and if we carry on like this…” He glanced at Crowley’s hand on his arm, at the rumpled bedding around them. “Perhaps the fields will back down, after a while.”

“Maybe,” Crowley shrugged. Then, with the tug of a smile, he said, “I hope not. You liked it.”

“ _You_ liked it,” said Aziraphale, smiling too.

“Oh, yeah. But then there’s no better fuck-you to upstairs _and_ downstairs than getting off on something that’s supposed to be keeping you in your place, eh?”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened slightly. “Well,” he said. “When you put it like that…”

Aziraphale’s hand twisted just a little in Crowley’s hair, and another spark of electricity flickered through Crowley’s body, making him gasp weakly as The Line made a rather limp attempt to remount its defences. But it didn’t matter: Crowley had never had defences, not really, where Aziraphale was concerned. All he had ever wanted to do was let him in.

And Aziraphale’s defences? They seemed to have crumbled, beautifully and joyfully, leaving this smiling, naked creature that lay by Crowley’s side. Might go on to lie by Crowley’s side for God literally knew how long.

Aziraphale pressed another soft kiss to Crowley’s cheek. Crowley closed his eyes in awful happiness, and he might even have drifted into sleep, if Aziraphale hadn’t murmured lovingly in his ear, “My dear, shall we have that lunch?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [juliet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliet) for inspiration (go read [The Movement of Molecules](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777891)!) and insightful, enthusiastic beta.


End file.
